


we start with stars in our eyes

by astrangetypeofchemistry



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: (you'll never guess it), Chloenette, F/F, Happy Ending, Just slightly, Light Angst, Rivalry, Soulmate AU, chlonette, in which you see a star above your soulmate's head, like... it's angst but it's not too much, mlsecretsanta, seeds of redemption are in there, small... but they're there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 07:31:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13208931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangetypeofchemistry/pseuds/astrangetypeofchemistry
Summary: In which you see a star above your soulmate's head, but Chloé is young when she sees it, and does not understand what it means.





	we start with stars in our eyes

**Author's Note:**

> For the ML Secret Santa Exchange. Can I get a what-what?

Chloé Bourgeois is one of few lucky people. Not many people find their soulmate at the age of 10. It’s a moment of joy, of shared tears as years of waiting and suffering end. When people see the star that shows up on their soulmate’s head, they weep at the promise of their brightened future. The star appears only when soulmates have a moment that bonds them for eternity. Very few are lucky enough to see the star as soon as they meet their soulmates.

But Chloé is young, and does not know the implications of it. Jealousy roars inside of her as she desires for a star above her head instead. She stomps on her soulmate’s foot, calls her a loser, and pretends to cry until her soulmate is kicked out of class. 

Her day goes on, and she never realizes who she’s really met.

* * *

She demands her butler to get her a star that evening. He stares at her silently, some sort of realization dawning on him as he continues to stare at her. 

“Mademoiselle, did you… see a star over someone’s head today?”

“I did,” Chloé sniffs indignantly. “And I simply cannot let someone else have a star before me.”

He continues to stare at her, before a small smile crosses his face. 

“I believe you met your soulmate, mademoiselle. Though I do wonder if he saw one over yours.”

Chloé cackles softly, her head shaking as she examines her nails. She really needed to get them redone; she was tired of their current color. “It wasn’t a  _ he _ . It was a new girl in my class.”

“A girl you say? Then it must have been nothing, mademoiselle. Perhaps you were hallucinating.”

Chloé immediately grows angry at that.

“Are you calling me delo- deli… dele…?”

“Delusional, mademoiselle?”

“Are you calling me delusional?” she shrieks, her hands flying to her hips. “I think it’s best you leave,  _ before _ I complain to my father about you.”

The butler hangs his head in shame, resigned to Chloé’s mood swings. “Yes, mademoiselle.”

She mutters to herself about his incompetence as he takes his leave, and he finds himself laughing at the thought of Chloé Bourgeois having a girl for a soulmate. 

There’s something that would tank the mayor’s reputation. 

* * *

Chloé doesn’t think about soulmates or stars after that, not really. It’s a brief thought in her head when she first starts confronting Marinette after that day, and soon enough, she forgets the reason she butts heads with her. It becomes a fun little game, seeing Marinette’s face turn red and words beginning to scramble. 

It’s a shock to her when, in the middle of class one day, Kim shakily points a finger at Max and states, loud and clear, “There’s a star above his head.”

The class erupts into chaos. Whispers and congratulations are thrown across the room, all while Max blushes bright red. He turns towards Kim and gasps, a disbelieving voice letting everyone know there was a star above Kim as well. 

The rest of the class period is spent talking about soulmates, naturally. 

“You can see who your soulmate is at any moment in time,” the teacher tells them with a small smile. “It doesn’t matter if you just met someone, or if you’ve known them for years. Something…  _ clicks _ for you, and the star appears above. Kim?”

He looks shellshocked, his eyes staring blankly at his hands. “I was just thinking about… sports…”

Their teacher only smiled at him, her eyes twinkling. “It’ll make sense, I promise. It always does.”

Chloé stops hearing after that, her ears ringing in the crowded room. There’s a small memory trying to creep in on her: a desire, for a star of her own. A petty jealousy choking her as she fakes tears smugly… 

“Are you okay, Chloé?” Sabrina asks later on, and Chloé nods her head, shoots her a tight smile, and carries on with her day. 

She thinks, somewhere deep down, her heart is starting to register its own ache. 

* * *

She doesn’t believe it at first. 

She knows about soulmates, but she’s also believed that her soulmate would be a boy. That’s what her staff tells her. 

That’s what her dad says. 

Her soulmate can’t be a girl, can it? And even if it was, it couldn’t be Marinette. Marinette was an annoying, stuck-up, goody-two-shoes who constantly had to get in Chloé’s way. Chloé’s soulmate should know how politics work, and politics were built around lies. Marinette didn’t even know that. 

She was insanely noble, constantly talking about how she hated lies and only accepted the truth. That couldn’t be Chloé’s soulmate. She refused to believe it.

* * *

Marinette is… more than an annoying little gremlin, Chloé realizes. 

Ever since the doubt creeping on her, the thought of there being something more being at work in their dynamic, Chloé has paid a little extra attention to Marinette. Sometimes, this means she pays attention to Marinette’s comings and goings. Other times, it’s eavesdropping on Marinette’s conversation as she gushes with Rose and Mylene. 

There are days, though, where Chloé finds herself staring at Marinette, at the way she smiles at everyone, at her expressions. And Marinette finds her staring a few times, furrows her eyebrows in confusion, and turns away, huffing indignantly. It leaves Chloé with an ache in her chest, this unspeakable emotion. 

She’s not entirely sure if Marinette  _ is _ her soulmate. How could she have seen a star as a 10-year-old. Ten year olds didn’t  _ see _ the star. Thirteen year olds did. Fifteen year olds did. Anyone older than 10 did.

And yet. She’d gone so long without someone being there for her every day. It hurt to know that Marinette could potentially be the only person willing to do that. 

What if she had missed her chance?

* * *

Pride stops her from bringing it up. Marinette makes a new friend, and Chloé felt jealousy rear its head every time she sees them hug. They were always  _ too _ close, and for a while she worried that they were soulmates. 

But then Alya gasped one quiet afternoon and pointed shaky fingers at Adrien and Nino, and Chloé felt her heart repair again. 

It was juvenile, picking fights with her just for attention. It wasn’t healthy, either. 

But she knew, she’d messed up with Marinette too much. She’d never get a second chance. All she had left were the angry glimmers in Marinette’s eyes, the rising volume of her voice and the red fury she came after Chloé. 

She treasures them because she knew, deep down, that she would never have the kind of relationship with Marinette that she wanted. 

Surprisingly enough, she was okay with that.

* * *

She tells her father her soulmate is a girl. It’s not an easy conversation. 

They’re sitting in the hotel’s dining room, with the occasional flash of a camera. Their weekly publicity stunt is a bad time for this conversation, but she has no choice. Chloé pushes her food around her plate and then, just as her father is getting ready to leave, she grabs his hand and says, “My soulmate is a girl.”

He stops in his tracks to stare at Chloé, and she stares back. His security waves the reporters away at his cue, and then he takes her hand as if, in the storm he’s currently drowning in, Chloé is his only anchor. 

“Okay,” he finally manages to say. “Okay, we can talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Chloé responds. “It is what it is.”

And then she runs away, too scared to see disappointment. Her mind plagues her with his response, how he would yell and lock her in her room. She doesn’t go to sleep that night. 

In the morning he’s there with her breakfast. They sit in silence until, with a small smile, he asks, “Is she a good person?”

“Yeah,” she says, and there are tears in her eyes as she confesses. “But I’m not.”

The cracks in their relationship begin to heal, and their dinners stop being publicized. 

It’s not a huge leap, but for now, it’s enough.

* * *

She makes a stupid mistake her last year of lycée. 

They were sitting together in the library, working on different parts of a partner. The only talking they’d done was deciding who’d do what. It feels foreign and strange, and Chloé feels disappointed. 

She should’ve seen this coming, really. They hadn’t talked in years. 

Marinette had chopped off her hair when they hit lycée, and Chloé wasn’t ashamed to admit that she looked great with it. Her contouring had improved, and she’d really begun rocking an eyeliner wing. 

Chloé wasn’t complaining. Her soulmate was  _ fucking beautiful _ . 

“I’d appreciate it if you did your work, Chloé,” Marinette grits out, teeth clenched. Her hand is tightly squeezing her pencil as Chloé watches. 

“And I’d appreciate it if you went on a date with me,” she shoots back unthinkingly. “But that’s not happening either.”

Marinette drops her pencil to stare at Chloé, who blinks in response. Her words process in her mind as Marinette’s eyes blow wide open, and she winces internally. 

As she watches Marinette opens her mouth, ready to respond with whatever was cooking in her head, before freezing. Her eyes were trained right above Chloé’s head, and Chloé could see a pinprick of light in her pupil.

“I want to apologize,” Chloé rushes out. “For my behavior. I was young when I saw the star, reacted badly, and kept acting out because I thought it was the only way.”

It wasn’t a full apology. It wasn’t an attempt at an excuse. It was just a statement. 

But Chloé had hope. And for the first time, the glimmer in Marinette’s eyes told her it wasn’t unfounded. 

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @queerinette


End file.
